William McKeen

Chair, Department of Journalism
Professor, Journalism

McKeen is the author of seven books and the editor of four more. His most recent books are Mile Marker Zero (Crown, 2011), a non-fiction narrative about Key West; Outlaw Journalist (W.W. Norton, 2008), a biography of Hunter S. Thompson; Highway 61 (W.W. Norton, 2003), a memoir of a 6,000-mile road trip with his teen-age son; and two anthologies, Rock and Roll is Here to Stay (W. W. Norton, 2000) and Literary Journalism: A Reader (Wadsworth, 2000).

He is also editing an anthology of stories about growing up in Florida called Homegrown, to be published by the University Press of Florida in 2012. In addition to his two stories in the collection, other contributors include Carl Hiaasen, Michael Connelly, Zora Neale Hurston, Kristin Harmel, Fabiola Santiago and
Tom Petty.

Before beginning his teaching career, he worked for several newspapers and magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, The American Spectator, The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

His writing has appeared in Holiday, American History, Maxim, The Saturday Evening Post and many other newspapers and magazines. He has appeared on “The Today Show,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “The CBS Evening News” and many other news programs.

His major teaching areas are literary journalism, history of journalism, reporting, feature writing and history of rock’n’roll.

Education

BA, MA, Indiana University
PhD, University of Oklahoma

Contact

Website: www.williammckeen.com
Office: Room 131